Watch Ron Jackson’s AG Facebook Takeover Performance and Q&A with Sean McGowan

It was your typical summertime Friday night—the sun taking its time to retreat into the horizon, dreams of a fun weekend beginning to form in the mind, and the computer fired up and ready to provide a fun, safe, socially distant evening of music and guitar talk with two superb players and artists. Seven-string guitarist Ron Jackson took over Acoustic Guitar’s Facebook page Friday night for a live performance and Q&A. Joining him for a portion of the event was Sean McGowan, who played some tunes on guitar and answered questions from Jackson and fans interacting via chat.

Jackson has been featured as an artist and contributor in Acoustic Guitar for the past six years, and also contributed to AG instructional books, including Chords At Your Fingertips. McGowan is also a frequent magazine contributor and has been a featured artist as well. His book work with AG includes Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Essentials: Complete Edition and other titles.

There’s a tense behind-the-scenes about this event. Ron was broadcasting from his home in New Jersey, where Tropical Storm Fay was raging through the area. The power went out less than an hour before the scheduled broadcast time of 9:00 PM Eastern. Ron had camping lanterns ready for lighting and there was a back-up plan ready (mobile broadcast on a fully charged cell phone), but 10 minutes before the broadcast the power came back on. Fortunately it stayed with us throughout the event, and all went off without a hitch. Even virtually, we still adhere to the time-tested adage, “The Show Must Go On!”